Electra (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Sophocles
- First Published: 1649
- Type of Work: Play
- Type of Plot: Tragedy
- Time of Work: c. 1250-1200
- Setting: Outside the royal palace in Mycenae, Greece
- Genres: Drama, Tragedy
- Subjects: Mothers, Parents and children, Murder or homicide, Mistaken or secret identity, Obsession, Women, Revenge, Kings, queens, or royalty, Gods or goddesses, Fratricide, parricide, or filicide, Tragedy, Rites or ceremonies, Prophecy or prophets, Greek or Roman times, Greece or Greek people, Trojan War
- Locales: Greece, ancient, Argos, ancient
Characters Discussed
Electra (ee-LEHK-truh), daughter of the slain king, Agamemnon, and his devious wife, Clytemnestra, who spends her virginal life—her name, a variation on A-lectra, means unbedded—mourning the death of her father. Electra, witnessing her father’s murder at the hands of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, with whom Clytemnestra conspires in the killing of her husband, vows to avenge her father’s death, plotting carefully to bring Clytemnestra and Aegisthus to account, which, with the help of her brother, Orestes, she eventually succeeds in doing.
...[The entire page is 709 words long]
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